Posts Tagged ‘Singapore affairs’

Pritam Singh has written an interesting post here. He brings up statistics from the Public Service Commission website to show that for much of the last decade the overwhelming recipients of PSC scholarships are Chinese students. Since 2002, minority recipients of the PSC scholarship has always comprised less than 10% of total scholarships awarded. In comparison, non-Chinese races make up some 25% of the population, which implies minorities are vastly under-represented in PSC scholars.

For non-Singaporeans, PSC scholarships are often considered prestigious because they guarantee a job in civil service which is often regarded as an iron rice bowl; a secured salaried job which usually pays better than most of the jobs in the private sector. As Pritam explains:

Singapore government scholarships are amongst the most sought after as they systematically groom young Singaporeans to take up leadership positions in government, such as permanent secretaries of government ministries, to CEOs of statutory boards such as Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the Central Provident Fund (CPF), amongst others.

This is certainly cause for concern, especially since these scholarships determine how much racial representation an ethnic group gets in government. While Pritam did not explicitly call for an affirmative action programme to ensure greater minority representation in PSC scholars, some who commented on TOC’s Facebook link to his post did so, as did those who commented on TOC’s reproduction of his post here. Others have argued that doing so would undermine meritocracy in Singapore, which judges individuals’ calibre based on their academic merits and achievements rather than by the colour of their skin.

But does one really have to choose between maintaining the status quo or introducing affirmative action? I argue that no one should have to do so if one is willing reform the scholarship system and practice of appointing top scholars to policy-making positions.

Those following The Online Citizen saga are aware that as of yesterday, TOC finally issued a formal press release (which I personally felt was unnecessarily lengthy) and an official reply to its readers regarding both the Prime Minister’s Office indication to gazette it as a political association under the Political Donations Act (PDA) as well as MDA’s notification to register both in 14 days.

I personally believe TOC should not have to be gazetted under the PDA and registered under some MDA license act. Indeed, why should any website have to do so and subject themselves to possible restrictions and greater regulation by a partisan government body? But at the same time that does not mean that there is no legal basis for gazetting. Let’s take a look at their official replies found here.

Disclaimer: I am no law student and may have erroneously mis-interpreted the statutes. Kindly point out any mistakes I have made in the comments below, thank you.

With the recent outcry in Singapore’s blogosphere and political scene over the news that The Online Citizen has been gazetted and demanded by the MDA to register within 14 days, attention has turned to the Temasek Review, a Singapore opinionated news blog whose web traffic in Singapore exceeds TOC (at least by Alexa’s ranking). While the local papers and media did not appear to discuss why TR was not gazetted as well, it is understood by most to have evaded the requirement because they are largely based overseas. As TR puts it in a press release today:

Temasek Review is indeed technically “funded” by foreigners and we are not hiding that fact. The server lease is paid by us (editors) and most of us have obtained foreign citizenship although we used to be Singaporean. The present server lease was paid in full for a year by a Chinese lady whom we sold the domain to following the Temasek Holdings fiasco. The Chinese lady has no editorial or administrative control over our site and has agreed to allow us to continue using the domain until she decides to sell it or use it personally for her own venture.

Of the 7 editors in our team, 4 are now “foreigners” with 3 pending. 95% of contributions (authors and contributors) are received from Singaporeans (we do check) and all our moderators are Singaporeans. The remaining 5% are editorial pieces from us.

Predictably, the reaction from some online quarters have been furious. On the comments page of that TR article carrying the announcement some of the reactions includes charges that TR does not represent Singaporeans or cannot do so because of where they are based or due to the composition of their editorial board. Yet for many reasons such a claim remain unfounded.

Note: I have not been able to update this blog as of late due to increasing work commitments. Loyal readers (and I personally thank you for that) should check this blog much less often for updates. Reader comments may be unaddressed for some time.This is likely to be the last post you see for a long time (I will be coming back eventually). A big thank you to those who have been reading this blog.

It was reported recently that the year-on-year inflation rate in Aug 2010 was 3.3%. At first glance this may not seem unusual. After all, Singapore is projected to achieve double-digit GDP growth for this year; some 20% growth is not out of question. It is perhaps with this in mind that the government has argued that letting in more foreign workers is crucial to prevent the economy from overheating. Singaporeans are told that unless more foreigners (whom are willing to work for lower pay) are allowed in, inflation will climb even more sharply higher. But a more in-depth analysis of the factors behind this inflation appears to undermine that argument.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) is pleased to invite entries for the GIC Essay Prize 2010/2011, administered by the Center for Asset Management Research & Investments (CAMRI) at NUS Business School, National University of Singapore.

The title of the Essay is “Post-financial crisis: key lessons, opportunities and recommendations for Asia’s institutional investors”.

The competition is open to all undergraduate students (pursuing Bachelor’s degrees) studying in Singapore and all Singaporean/Singapore PR undergraduate students (pursuing Bachelor’s degrees) studying abroad.

Let me propose a simple one:

People who are terrible in forecasting shouldn’t run institutional investment funds.

Housing prices have always been a hot topic for discussion amongst Singaporeans. Both academics and netizens have written extensively on the relentless rising cost of living due to housing price inflation. In a footnote to a 2008 paper on Singapore’s policy responses to ageing and retirement, Prof Mukul Asher cites a 2007 Citi memo (which I have unfortunately not been able to unearth) authored by Dr Chua Hak Bin arguing that Singapore’s inflation rate was severely understated primarily due to the way housing inflation was calculated:

Chua (2007b) has argued that the inﬂation rate in Singapore, as measured by the consumer price index, is signiﬁcantly understated, primarily because of the way the housing component is incorporated.

One of the bigger mysteries in Singapore is that although public housing prices have gone through the roof, inflation has not. Why should this be so, especially since home-ownership rates in Singapore is one of the highest in the world (88.8% as of 2009). What determines how housing prices in Singapore affects the inflation rate? To answer this question, we must examine how housing prices are factored in the consumer price index (CPI). This may come as a surprise to some, but housing prices in Singapore are not reflected in the CPI.

Supporters of the ruling party and status quo are fond of citing Singapore’s GDP per capita, one of the highest in the world as evidence that its government has done well. Measuring economic success by GDP has many disadvantages as various other netizens have elaborated. I don’t intend to add to those, but in this post I will endeavour to show how this metric is flawed even without disputing that GXP (where ‘X’ refers to any of various national income accounting measures) measures the economic well-being a country’s people.